


Broken Crystal

by Xenamorph



Series: The Scion's Awakening [1]
Category: Wizard101 (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, catacombs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:00:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25980970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xenamorph/pseuds/Xenamorph
Series: The Scion's Awakening [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1885681
Kudos: 1





	Broken Crystal

"This will be Dragonspyre reborn!" Cal repeated for the fifth time that hour. The crystal that made up their heart was shattered, just barely held together by the machinary surrounding it. Their metallic face seemed to be permanently stuck into a wild, zealous smile. It was more emotion than the necromancer usually showed to the point that it was unnerving all of their girlfriends. Though, jury was still out on whether it was the repetition, the emotion, or the actual content of their words that was the most unnerving.

"So do we have any clue what's up with them?" Jasmine, who had missed the initial shattering, asked. Their hand toyed with one of their locs, twisting it around her finger as she stared at her partner. It had been her mandatory (mandated by both her partners and the state) weekly therapy session when the rest of them went down to the Golem Court drains to help out. And wasn't that always the case? It was always out of her hands whenever anything happened to her partners, she never got to have the agency to fuck things up on her own. She never got to be a proper villain, even, she was always a victim of circumstance no matter how many times she remembered just how she had gotten herself into that dark place. Victim, yes, but blameless she was not. 

Her (admittedly dark, there's a reason that Jasmine never begrudged the state or her partners for making her go to therapy) musings were cut short as Calamity snorted, rolling her eyes as she shook her head. There were no disguises, not in Jasmine's house. She hated the fakeness, the feeling of magic crawling over her skin (she could handle it in public, when magic was everywhere and overstimulation was a given) and tricking her eyes into seeing things that weren't there. She had enough of that in Khrysalis, enough of that when she took a throne that should never have been hers. "No, we know exactly why they're like this." Calamity scowled, perched on the edge of the sofa that Cal was sitting on. She examined her nails (claws was the better word, though that never stopped Calamity from painting them red and black and green and yellow), and sighed. "It's- there's something going on with the drains, and with the catacombs. There's some sort of magic, and we aren't really supposed to be expected to help but we did anyway. So I guess we got ourselves into this but hey! We like helping right-"

Jasmine opened her mouth to agree (of course she agreed, she did like helping), but Calamity just barreled right over her as she kept talking.

"So we go down into the drains, there are huge talking bugs and it reminded me of Khrysalis so Jaz, darling, if you're still affected by that I don't suggest going down there. There was a fly that came up to my waist! Freaky as all the levels of the afterlife, honestly, but whatever, we could deal. Apparently there's this new wizard hero, I guess Merle decided the bunch of us were a tad too controversial to continue endorsing us so he chose some other child," There was a distinctly bitter note in her voice, and Jasmine reached over to gently pat her hand, "I'm fine, I'm fine, it's whatever. We'll find the kid and we'll save them and we'll help out no matter what they need. We're not letting this-" the unspoken this was them, was the fact that all of them were hand picked for a life and a mission that none of them asked or wanted "-happen again. But whatever- not the point-"

"-The point is-" Rowan interjected, giving a little glare when Calamity spent too much time rambling on for her tastes, -"The point is that we were down in the catacombs, and there were Dragonspyrian Knowledge Crystals down there, just like Cal is made up of. They had this weird sort of goop on it, like the stuff that's been leaking out of some of the houses in Unicorn Way, and it had been affecting their ability to tell the time and they had gotten stuck in time loops." Her hand clapped on Cal's shoulder, giving it a little squeeze, "And darlingest Cal here decided the best course of action, as the only one with a knowledge crystal, was to touch the goop."

Jasmine interrupted, breathing out and running her hand through her locs as well as she could, "What the fuck Cal?" The question, while a legitimate question, was turned rhetorical as Cal didn't reply. Just kept staring straight ahead with the same sort of grin on their lips. "So what's with the tag lines? I've heard them say something about Dragonspyre reborn five times now."

"That's again something from the other crystals. They were old, Jaz, like pre-Wizard City old, pre-Ravenwood old. They came when uhh...the guys name started with an R, I know that." Rowan tugged on her side braids, frowning slightly as she thought on it, "Rydall! It was this guy named Rydall and he apparently came here to colonize the place. Got into a fight with this old group that originally lived here called the Druids. It was messy stuff, all imperialistic and crap. Stuff that Cal should not be, but seems to be now. The goop is affecting them a lot, they keep prattling on about their Prince and his Drake, so I think we have to go back down there. Find a way to fix the goop and get to the bottom of this." 

"We could find that new group of heroes too! I'm sure they'd really appreciate a hand in these sorts of things, drakes and princes and corrupting goop and all." And now that Jasmine actually looked, she could see that the knowledge crystal inside of Cal's chest was _wrong_. It was covered in a spray of green goop, discoloring the normally purplish-blue crystal and making it seem almost yellow. "I know that we would've appreciated any sort of help when we were in their shoes."

"No, no yeah I agree. We keep an eye on Cal, we bring them to the drains, and we bully whoever the hell we need to in order to know who to go to." Jasmine decided, nodding her head as she looked at each of her partners in turn. Cal was unresponsive, not that Jasmine expected them to respond. Calamity seemed a bit enthused, though that was probably because she always liked helping out younger heroes (and even when they had still been adventuring, she had always made sure that they were helping out whoever they could, until they stopped doing that). Rowan seemed a tad bit bored, but Jasmine could handle a bored Rowan, what she couldn't handle was a Rowan that was absolutely against what she was trying to do. "Shall we go?"

Rowan huffed, but moved to Cal's side and began to shift them upwards, "I'll get the corrupted one, but if I ever want to set them down, they're going right on your shoulders I hope you know that Jaz." She sent a glare her way, a little scowl on her canine lips as she wrapped one arm around Cal's waist and used the other to squeeze their charm to transform them into a human. The effect of the magic was instant, and Jasmine could already feel the itch and tingle of illusion magic run its scratching fingers down her arms and fingers.

Calamity did the same thing, and Jasmine couldn't stop herself from shivering. "Sorry!" She almost immediately apologized when she saw just how affected Jasmine was by the magic, but she didn't undo the spell. After all, people seemed to always be on edge whenever Calamity was out in her full reptilian form. All scaled and fanged and clawed. It's not like Jasmine could ask her to weather the glares and stares just because a pyromancer couldn't handle just a little bit of illusion magic.

So she shouldered the feeling and wrapped her sun serpent around her shoulders tighter. The beast shifted on her shoulders, coiling slightly as it shifted back into place, it's feathers doing wonders to block (at least from Jasmine's point of view) the effects of the illusion magic on her skin, "It's okay, it's okay. But we better get going, right? We don't want to leave Cal like this any longer." 

They all nodded at each other, save for Cal who just laughed and repeated: "This will be Dragonspyre Reborn! What an honor this is! Dragonspyre wanes from plague and upheaval, but my Lord has enlisted such wonderful and powerful wizards to help save it"

"Are they getting worse or better? That's a longer line, but I'm not sure how much I like them talking about a Dragonspyre lord." Rowan grunted as she tightened a grip on Cal's shoulder, "I'll go there first, I have some magic left there from when we fled the battle. I can take me and Cal there right now, but Calamity you should show Jaz where the entrance to the place is." There was a duo of nods, and Rowan was disappearing. A cloud of blue and gold smoke swirling around her and Cal, and when it settled (dust on her floor, Jasmine regretted letting her partners just use her dorm room as a base), they were both gone. 

"So, the drains huh?" Jasmine drifted over to her closet, after all there are two different outfits and one of them you wear to therapy and the other you wear to make sure that the magic goop on your partner's heart crystal isn't going to permanently ruin their soul. The former was pristine and screamed 'I'm mentally stable!', while the latter undid all of that work. Soon enough, Jasmine was fitted out in knee high muck boots, overalls, and a ratty tee shirt underneath. After all, if it's the drains, and if there was at least some sort of strange goop going on, then she did not want to get any of that on her outfit. It wasn't the most stylish thing, but that didn't really matter. No one important was going to see her, and those that she did care about wouldn't mind that she's wearing a horribly mismatched outfit.

"Yeah, they're rather gross. Literally full of sentient trash, I had to fight them off. I can't believe that it took Cal that long to get corrupted with all of the goop in that place, but honestly that's for the best, isn't it?" Calamity shrugged, draping herself over Jasmine's shoulder and gently scratching underneath Her Majesty's (the affectionate nickname that they had all given to Jasmine's pet) chin. "At least they haven't had enough long term time for it to actually affect them. But, we should go, like, now. We don't need Rowan getting worried that we've gotten tripped up in some dangerous thing and leaving Cal alone."

"Drains...where are the entrances to the drains even? Triton Avenue? That sounds like it's right." Jasmine turned her head to press a kiss to Calamity's cheek.

"Well, you're wrong. The entrance is actually in Golem Court, there's this weird sort of manhole entrance, sort of reminds me of the brief time that I spent in Marleybone. It's really odd actually, I know I've walked around the tower and I've never seen it before," A little huff and she drifted off of Jasmine's shoulders, reaching down and gently squeezing her hand, "Let's go." And with that, they were off. Jasmine taking her time to just appreciate the serenity of the newly recovered Wizard City, though now she could see the tension. The little bits of whispered conversations, crowds of students having a few more bandages than normal, the stench (though it was barely noticeable, Jasmine felt like she was on high alert) of garbage in the air.

"It feels, different to you too, right?" Jasmine's voice was almost hissed out as they passed by the fairgrounds, "There's something wrong here."

"Oh, Jaz," Calamity's voice was just slightly sad and condescending and Jasmine knew that there was something wrong. Something that she had been too wrapped up in herself to even notice that there was something wrong in the city. "It's been like this for a while, hell I don't think it ever actually got better. This place...this place is sick, and it's been sick for a while. We helped other worlds and we saved it from destruction, but Wizard City has something deeply wrong with it. And I think it all comes from the drains, there's something in the drains and it's been there for a while. Like Rowan said, the crystals- the corrupted ones that we are working on fixing- were old, old. Like strangely old, pre-Dragonspyre's fall, old. Hell, if somethings that we found are correct, pre-Ravenwood itself, old."

"Well, why didn't anyone tell me? I could've helped instead of going to therapy, we could've been working on this since I came back!" Jasmine's words were an odd sort of shouted-whispered, so much energy and worry behind words that were barely audible to Calamity's human ears. "We could've gotten to a source and maybe Cal wouldn't have gotten corrupted and-"

"Jasmine," Calamity used her full name, giving a rough little squeeze of Jasmine's hand, "You're allowed to focus on yourself. You're allowed to let yourself be happy and you're allowed to work on yourself first. You're a person, and no one should have to put their bodies and their health last. If any of us know about health, it's me. You needed to focus on your mental health before you can even think to fix the world. How can you take care of everything else if you're falling apart at the seams?"

"It just feels selfish."

"Maybe it is selfish, why is that a bad thing? What makes you so different that you think you're above being selfish? What makes you have to be completely selfless and impersonal and neglect yourself?" Calamity's voice was probing and gentle, and she squeezed Jasmine's hand again. "You are allowed to be selfish, that's why we're here. You have three people to depend on, three people to help you shoulder the blame and the weight of everything that you insist on carrying."

Their conversation (really just Calamity making sure that Jasmine wasn't guilt tripping herself over not being there for something that she had no chance of knowing about) last long enough for them to be at the entrance to the drains. There was a moderately attractive, Jasmine was looking _respectively_ , Marleybonian woman named Renee, who welcomed and ushered them down into the drains. And the smell just got worse, and the source of it was obvious. Calamity hadn't been joking when she mentioned the sentient trash, because Jasmine was greeted with the odd sight of lumps of trash roaming around. 

"Aw, fucking sweet Kings!" Jasmine yelped out, eyes wide as she took in the giant mountains of trash cluttering the sides. 

"Yeah, I know, it's cleaner down in the catacombs. Dusty and full of bones, but cleaner. We just have to climb over the mountains of trash first-"

"-we have to _climb over the trash?_ "- Jasmine interrupted, voice pitching up high as she gestured at the mountain that was taller than she was.

"-Yes, we do, that's the best way of going through it. Unless you want those trash monsters to be vomiting on you, the trash piles are the best way to go." And there was no way to argue with that, so Jasmine just grunted and tried not to wince at the sound of trash squelching underneath her shoes. The actual boots were a definite good idea, the grip kept her from slipping down or falling face first into the heap. 

They moved in silence, trading little winces and grimaces whenever the piles made horrible noises when they stepped in less than perfect places. Until they had reached the entrance to the catacombs, and Calamity was right. She was right on with the dust and the bones and the feeling of something _old_ and wrong in the place. This was something old, something that they had no chance or opportunity to change. Something that was wholly out of her control and that she never could've changed. Nothing that she could've done, there is no blame and for once (in this case, this specific case of Wizard City) her hands are clean. There's an odd sense of relief at that, at being blameless for once. No one could ever blame her for this.

There's shambling, not like the mummies of Krokotopia but more like the ghosts and specters of Dragonspyre. They turned a corner and Jasmine could see the telltale glow of spirits on the floor, the closer they got the more details became clearer. The draconian designs, the old metal outfits that hadn't been used for centuries, the amount of students (students students students they were all students why can Merle find qualified people instead of setting up tragedies and accidents as extra credit) banishing the things made things clearer. There was nothing that was properly being rewarded, just odd alchemical (neon green to the point of hurting her eyes thanks to the lack of light in the Catacombs) reagents. Goo that got collected into vials, salts that were swept into pouches, and crystals that were picked up with gloved hands.

"Woah," The reaction came right out of her mouth as she saw a ghost disintegrate into goo, the student that had banished it barely blinked before sweeping it up and packing it away. "This is...a lot larger than I expected it was going to be. This is on the level of Dragonspyre itself, how did all of these ghosts get here?"

"We don't know, or at least we have theories but nothing solid. I think that it's the larger crystals that summoned these ones, because that's how some relics from my land worked. One main vessel for a very important person could also channel a set amount of lesser- and I mean that in the eyes of the community lesser, of course everyone has equal worth- spirits. So I think if we get rid of the larger crystals, the other ghosts will disappear along with them." Calamity grabbed Jasmine's hand, giving it a tight squeeze as she barely avoided getting swept into a battle with a soldier ghost. "Rowan and Cal are in one of these crypts, there's a really huge crystal there and we couldn't get rid of it before we noticed that Cal was going on the fritz. Hopefully when we're all down there, we can work it better than before."

"Of course the first thing we gotta do is fix Cal, and then we can worry about the other crystals. Not all of our magic is precise, and I know none of us want to risk breaking their crystal anymore than it's already been messed with," Jasmine's eyes drifted down to her fingers, to the ashen tips and the small tendrils coming off of her fingers. The permanent stains of what she had done, but she counted herself lucky. She wasn't dead (though Malistaire definitely got the best ending, he passed on with his wife), she hadn't fall into the void between worlds (the sight of Morganthe's spider form falling through the glass branded itself on the back of her eyelids), she hadn't been permanently warped. She just had permanent ashy tattoos on her skin, something that would always mark her as a shadow magic user. "Do you think there are going to be any effects of the goo on them? This stuff is pretty new right?"

"Right," Calamity let her fingers dance over an intricate carving in the stone, "Like obviously this weird stuff is only just now being discovered by us, and the whole crystals and corruption and ghosts has been going on for a while, but the goo is new. I've heard that the Alchemy club messed up, you know that club went downhill the second Gretta Darkkettle was exiled for being an agent of the Cabal. No supervisor and a bunch of kids using magic that none of us really know a lot about? Really we were just asking for something like this to happen," She gave a rough little laugh as she fiddled with her nails, "I don't know if we're going to have any serious effects from the corruption, but if we do, we'll handle it. Cal's going to be fine in the end, the world owes us that much at least. We've sacrificed too much to not get some sort of happy ending."

Jasmine nodded, even though she didn't entirely agree. They weren't owed anything by any powerful force, but maybe Calamity had a point in that the world itself owed them. They deserved the sort of comforts and care that people could give after giving up their childhoods and safety over and over again. There were debts that could be paid after all, and Jasmine knew that both Calamity and Rowan were deadly when it came to unpaid debts. "Right. Okay, how much further are we?" They had started going down into a specific crypt, passing through several separate rooms (evidence of battles won were there, small splotches of that goo on the ground, crystals that weren't large enough to pick up, grains of salt that were missed) before the could hear the familiar noise of Rowan talking.

"Cal- come on look at me Cal! I'm Rowan Mythhunter, we've been dating for years now, you're just corrupted, you're not in your right mind right now," It sounded like she had been saying this for a while, trying to reason and work Cal back to sanity. "You don't work for any Lord, you barely even knew Dragonspyre before you left there. You grew up in Wizard City, in Ravenwood, and you're a necromancer in an automaton body. You are not flesh and blood!" The last word got a little hysterical, and that was when Jasmine stumbled in, "Oh, thank fucking god you're here! I banished the stupid fucking knowledge crystal spirit that was here, so now we just have to figure out what to do with the crystal itself."

The crystal that she was talking about was in the center of the room, jutting up at least five feet with a few off shoots that were only one or two feet tall. It was the same sort of purple-blue that Cal's was, but this one was covered in what looked like the same goo. Across a bigger surface, the goo was obviously almost spider-web like, stretching across the surface and seeming to be the same sort of consistency as spider webbing. Jasmine almost reached to touch it, before Calamity slapped her hand away.

"What is it with my partners and their undying need to touch things they shouldn't!" Calamity scoffed as she held both of Jasmine's hands in one hand and squeezed them, "We already have one fucked up partner, we don't need another. You're not a soul crystal but we really don't want to see what happens when a biological being touches that shit." Calamity sighed, letting her wrists go as she moved to be on Cal's other side. 

"This will be Dragonspyre reborn!" was all that Cal had to say, said in the same exact intonation as all the other times that they repeated that sentence. 

Jasmine hummed, chewing on her lower lip as she moved to crouch in front of them. The goo was both on the crystal and the wiring around it which was going to be annoying to deal with, "Those students, that were dealing with the vanguards, they had these gloves on when they were touching the goo. Should we get some of those?"

"I have a set, I figured that too many cooks spoil the broth and all. Figured it would be best for only one of us to be touching the crystal instead of three sets of hands all fiddling around in her inner workings. I've also sent out a message for Malorn to get here, since he was one of the first ones to make the actual automaton."

"Good idea, that way if we break them- _not that I'm planning on doing that_ \- we can have him fix the automaton. We just have to make sure that the soul crystal stays intact. The automaton can be remade, but it's going to be a real shit show if we break the crystal itself," Jasmine chewed on her lower lip as she held out her hand for the gloves. Rowan passed them over, and Jasmine was briefly distracted with the craftsmanship of it. They were rough and slightly scaled, Jasmine figured that it could be dragon hide. Which was one of the hardier materials for any sort of protective clothing, and often expensive with the lack of dragons in the world. "Were they just giving these out for free?"

"Yeah, seems like they're all really worried about these ghosts. I guess the idea of dealing with these ghosts was worse than the monetary loss, not that I can get that but hey, we got a deal on those." The tips of the gloves were slightly covered in the goo, and Jasmine made sure to be careful when sliding them on, "Oh, yeah we also had to clean out the last few rooms of ghosts, so we have a lot of that goo and the salt and the crystals. I transported it all back home though, don't worry, I didn't want any of that near Cal." Rowan hummed, drumming her foot on the ground.

"Good idea, maybe we can test that sort of stuff and compare it with the stuff that's on the crystals. See if there's a common denominator and something that we can make the Alchemy club fix," Jasmine slowly began to bend the little wires (using just a little bit of pyromancy to make the wires a bit more malleable) that kept the crystal in the center of their chest. Soon enough, she was able to actually touch the crystal itself. She had rarely been able to touch it, Cal was almost paranoid about letting anything or anyone touch it (which made it painfully ironic that they were the one who touched the goo). 

The crystal glowed brighter as Jasmine's glove covered fingers touch the surface, and the glow was wrong again. It was yellowish and pulsing instead of the steady glow that it used to have. "This will be D- D- D- D-ragon- Reborn!" Cal's voice skipped like a broken record, a little twitch of their facial feature and hands accompanying the glitch. The goo was just barely sticky, and Jasmine was slowly able to brush it off. Rowan, ever the quick thinker, held a small vial underneath the crystal to catch the goo.

"If there's a chance that the goo's different, we'll need to have both samples to double check," Rowan hummed as she glared at the little droplet still hanging onto the crystal. It dangled there, wobbling and slipping down before finally dropping off of it entirely. The crystal slowly returned to its original state.

The yellow hue faded back into it's normal state of blue and purple. The glow went from pulsing to steady and bright, Cal's face almost powered down. Slipping into just blank silver nothingness, no expression and no features on it. Jasmine, in the brief moments before putting the crystal back into their chest, could appreciate the amount of skill that went into crafting their lovers body. But soon enough the crystal was back into their chest, and their face reanimated.

"Eugh..." Cal grunted out, voice thick and rough as their hand raised up to bang against the side of their head. "I feel like pure garbage, what happened?"

"What's the last thing that you remember?"

"Touching the weird goo that was on the ground after we banished the older and younger versions of that Greggor guy, ugh, he was annoying to beat," Cal reached up, touching the back of their head like they were expecting to find a dent or something that could interrupt their functioning. "What happened?"

"Yeah, about that." Calamity fiddled with the beading on her shirt, biting her lower lip as she rocked on her heels, "You were sort of...corrupted just like they were. Don't worry though!-" Calamity waved her hands emphatically,- "You weren't out for that long! Just a few hours, and we didn't even have to fight you! We just had to get some gloves, and also Jaz because you know, she wasn't there for what happened, and we brushed it all off."

Rowan hummed, holding up the half filled vial and swirled around the green goo inside of it. "It's all in here, this vial holds the very thing that turned you into a Dragonspyrian nationalist." Rowan slipped the vial into her pockets (she had so many reagents, and they all knew that these alchemical goos, salts, and crystals were going to join that hoard soon enough.

"Did we find that girl we were looking for? The one that Professor Hargrove sent us down for?" Cal moved to stand, stumbling slightly over their own feet as they supported themself with a hand on Calamity's shoulder. "Tatiana Soulthief, I believe that was her name."

Calamity's eyes went wide, and she swore. Not in a language that any of them understood, but they all knew enough to know which words were insults and swears. "That's the hero that Merle chose, or someone chose! That Tatiana Soul-whatever, she must be the one that everyone's been looking to to save them!"

Jasmine's lips twitched, so very tempted into twisting into a scowl, "We have to find her, offer our help and more importantly our magic. If they're anything like what we had to deal with, then they're going to need some firepower." And she twirled her hand, letting a flame erupt on her fingertips. Not lighting anything ablaze, but spreading warmth across the group, and sending their shadows crawling up the stone walls of the crypt. "So we find Tatiana, we lie and say that we're here for a mentorship and that Merle Ambrose sent us to help, and then we find out what exactly is being put on this person's shoulder."

"Are you speaking of the Great Tree's Scion?" A booming, echoing voice spoke behind Jasmine. 

She yelped, almost squealing out as she whirled around, already sending a fireball in the direction of the voice. But the fireball did nothing, just flew right into the shape and exploded against the wall. "Oh great, more ghosts." Her voice was not trembling, it wasn't, as she summoned up more fire.

The cloaked figure (or rather, the cloak figure, since it seemed to just be a vague human face inside of a cloak with horns) raised a hand to stop her, "I am not here to fight or to hurt any of you, I am merely here to redistribute information that you should already have. The hero that you are searching for is in Ravenwood right now, finishing up a class. Afterwards, this Tatiana will be sent to Avalon to recover a Renegade of my band. She is but a child, at least in my time she would be considered one, and an ill-practiced one at that. She is new to magic, and yet she is already in possession of great power. The Great Tree, Bartleby himself, chose her as his scion. She can summon up his power as if it was her own, and yet she can barely buff her spells on her own without using outside magic. Tatiana will not be able to handle the tasks given to her, and you all must stop her from taking on too much." The being turned its head, focusing entirely on Jasmine, "You of all people know what pressure and uncontrolled power does to a magician, does to a spellcaster. You must guide her, you must be there to keep her from going down the same path you allowed yourself to go down. It is your duty, your fate."

"Hey! Jaz doesn't have to do anything that some weird ghost tells her to do!" While Rowan's defense warmed Jasmine's heart, Jasmine didn't feel like she needed one. Whatever this person was, they obviously knew a bit more than all of them. And it wasn't like Jasmine disagreed with them, in fact just the opposite. She should be there for the new age of heroes, she should be there to make sure that Tatiana didn't go down the same route that she did.

Her hand rested on Rowan's shoulder, giving it a little squeeze as she shook her head, "No, Ro, they're right. And I would've done it, I swear, even if you hadn't told me to, I would've done it. Though..." Jasmine turned to look at ghost, "I would like to know who you are."

"I am a Treeminder, one of the ancient druids that existed here for time immemorium. Long before the Dragonspyre army marched into this city, long before the trees that they stole from us were planted and the school erupted around them." Down the tunnel, there was noise of footsteps and muffled words. "I must go, remember your duty, Wizard Nightflame."

Jasmine swallowed the spit in her mouth, but squared her shoulders and nodded her head, "I will, I won't let you down, Treeminder." And internally, she thought, _I won't let it happen again._

The Treeminder vanished in a puff of smoke, just as two children (oh and they were children they were just barely older than the four of them had been when they first started on Triton Avenue) entered. One of them, a Thaumaturge if their outfit was to be believe, whipped out their wand. The words were already streaming out of their mouth in order to draw up the battle sigil before Cal shouted out a counterspell.

"We are not enemies! We're...-"

"Oh, Great Tree, Shelby I think these are the former heroes!" The one who must be Tatiana if the Thaumaturge was Shelby gasped out, hand settling on her arm, "Put your wand down, these guys have to know so much more magic than us."

Jasmine couldn't stop herself from giving a little laugh at how large of an understatement that was. The magic that they had know were so much further away from Ravenwood magic, so much magic to improve themselves and change themselves and control the world around them. "That's quite right, little wizards, and we're here to help. Merle Ambrose is a wise wizard but he's...not entirely all that smart when it comes to helping those that he charges with saving the world. But we can offer magic, and supplies and connections that very few other people in the Spiral have." 

Tatiana's eyes went wide, blinking slightly faster as she gulped, "You mean...we're not going to be alone for this? Because that Treeminder that we ran into told us that we'd have to fight so many powerful people. And there were going to be other druids and a brain eater and a thing that was banished to the outside realms and- and I'm just barely adept at magic! I can't do this, but I can summon up Niles but I can't even make blades appear for Shelby to use!"

"We don't-" Shelby hissed and grabbed Tatiana by the arm and leaned to whisper in Tatiana's ear, not that it stopped any of the extremely adept wizards from overhearing- "Tati, we don't need them, we're doing just fine on our own. They got by just fine with no help, and so can we." 

Calamity laughed, bright and wild, and just barely raised her hand up to cover her mouth, "We didn't do well at all! How long have you guys been here, honestly? We were all horribly affected, we all almost died so many times and Merle just turned his back on us! We're not going to carry you, you will be doing a lot of the stuff on your own, but we're just reaching out an offer of help. Everyone needs help, especially heroes!"

Shelby didn't seem to really agree, but she was quickly spoken over as Tatiana wiped at her eyes, "That sounds really great, you guys sound like really great wizards if all of the stories are true. I know that- Shell here likes to be a long wolf, but I don't think we'll be able to do it with just the two of us. People have always called both ice and balance supplementary schools and I just don't know if we'd be able to make it work!"

Shelby scowled, shoving slightly at her partner's shoulder, "We'd be able to make it work, no matter what the world throws at us we'd be able to overtake it even it it was just the two of us." There was a painfully familiar fire in her eyes, something that reminded Jasmine of her younger self. A dangerous sort of reminder, maybe Tatiana wasn't the one that she would have to monitor to make sure that she wasn't going down a darker path.

"Well, I guess we should start, shouldn't we?"


End file.
